


if you asked me how to be a man, i would laugh (cause i'm barely human)

by death_as_a_fetish



Category: Love Simon (2018)
Genre: Gen, M/M, and grammatically unsound af, blaming it on my undying love for logan miller tbh, everything is lowercase oops, i have no idea what this is, sorry in advance folks, the doc is literally titled 'what is this martin nonsense'
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-08
Updated: 2018-06-08
Packaged: 2019-05-19 12:49:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14874057
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/death_as_a_fetish/pseuds/death_as_a_fetish
Summary: his mouth is dry and his head is spinning and simon hates him.--follows along with the film. in which martin's a (bigger) mess and maybe a little gay.





	if you asked me how to be a man, i would laugh (cause i'm barely human)

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from mob by darth nater. this was written while listening to the album sophomore, so recommended listening while reading? i have no idea where this came from. maybe i didn’t totally hate martin all the time and this just vomited out of my fingers because of it. a jumbled grammatically unsound unbetaed mess because that’s exactly how martin thinks in my mind. 
> 
> also, it should be noted that even though i've seen the movie a million times, it has been a minute. so if things don't line up perfectly, that's why.

so maybe martin was spiraling. maybe all of his feelings for abby were misplaced. maybe the reason he outed simon wasn’t for the reason he said at all. sure, being made fun of wasn’t his idea of a good time, but if he really thought about it (like really thought about it, even if he didn’t want to) then yeah. maybe the reason he outed simon was because he was scared.

 

look, martin’s brother is gay. he wasn’t lying when he told simon that (maybe it was the only time he was honest with him). it’s not like being gay is a big deal in his family. his mom loves his brother and his partner and well, his dad was never really in the picture so he doesn’t know what his opinion would’ve been but it doesn’t matter anyway.

 

the point is he could come out to his mom and be totally fine. come out. because listen, maybe simon and ethan and the mystery email guy aren’t the only ones who are gay. like maybe martin’s a little gay.

 

and okay, maybe if martin was really honest with himself he might be able to admit that he has feelings for simon. and maybe that’s why he went after abby. like abby was cool, don’t get him wrong. and she’s objectively hot. but when martin read those emails between simon and blue his first thought _wasn’t '_ oh hey i can use these to blackmail simon into helping me get with abby suso’. it was actually something like ‘fuck simon’s gay. simon’s gay and i’m… fuck’. so martin took the screenshots and he wasn’t really sure why until he was walking up to simon. ‘you might find it interesting to know that my brother’s gay’ why was he saying that? simon looked so freaked out. and that freaked martin out. like maybe martin had thought about for a split second telling simon that he wasn’t blue, but he was like simon too.

 

simon was too freaked out so okay he thinks abby is cool so he’ll use that. he can tell simon thinks he’s awful. blackmailing him to get to his best friend. it’s gross, martin knows it’s gross. but also this will help him get closer to simon maybe? he’s not really thinking. his mouth is dry and his head is spinning and simon hates him.

 

he brings simon over to his place. he makes a stupid joke, asking what part of himself simon thinks is attractive. he’s kind of hoping simon will say everything. he says nothing. instead, he digs through martin’s drawers and tosses all of the shirts he’s collected at him and insulting them. insulting him. he says he wants abby to like him for him. really, he wants simon to like him for him. ‘do you want to stay over?’ he just wants to spend time with simon. he just wants to get to know him better. simon doesn’t want either of those things though so he leaves.

 

simon invites martin to the halloween party with him and his friends. he wears his freudian slip and thinks everyone (simon) will get a kick out of it. no one does.

 

he pukes on simon and spends the rest of the night with his head in the toilet, mentally beating himself up for being so stupid.

 

he fakes a paper cut and asks simon to come to the supply room with him. he just wants to tell him. ‘simon i don’t like abby. i like…’ he can’t even say it to himself so why does he think he’d be able to say it to him? the conversation goes the way all of their conversations have been going lately. why doesn’t abby like me yet yada yada yada. he thinks he’ll tell simon but he can tell simon’s too worried about the emails getting leaked because he doesn’t want blue to disappear. and it kind of clicks that okay simon really likes this guy and martin don’t be stupid because he’s very clearly not into you. abby walks in and tells them they’re weird for whatever that freaky friday thing they just did was. simon says they should all run lines at waffle house.

 

lyle from school is there and martin can see the way him and simon are looking at each other. is he the guy from the emails? simon’s face is slightly red. martin tries to ignore it, instead proclaiming to all of waffle house that abby suso deserves a goddamn superhero (she does).  simon gets up eventually and follows lyle outside. martin tries to pretend the sick feeling in his stomach is from eating too much toast and bacon and not jealousy.

 

martin likes abby. she’s really cool and they actually get along well. she laughs at his stupid shark joke and even goes along with it. martin doesn’t have a lot of friends. mostly it’s just suraj (okay it’s literally just suraj). he thinks abby could be a really great friend to have. he briefly considers telling her about simon. like not that simon’s gay or about the emails or the false ‘help me date abby mission’ he’s been helping martin with. but telling her that he likes simon. finally willing to admit it to himself. maybe he could be willing to admit it to someone else too? that thought doesn’t last long because no, he’s too far into this lie and he doesn’t want simon to hate him more than he already does. besides, simon likes someone else.

 

so martin plans this big stupid gesture at the homecoming game. he tries to talk to simon about it beforehand because he’s kind of hoping simon will be like ‘no martin, don’t do that.’ like maybe simon will say ‘i really like you martin, don’t try to go out with abby’. simon blows him off and tells him to go for it. so he does. it’s not that he really wants to date abby because he still doesn’t. but she’s cool and he thinks maybe she likes him and maybe it wouldn’t be the worst thing to give a shot.

 

she doesn’t want to date him. everyone’s laughing. he feels stupid for a million reasons. kids on creek secrets start making memes out of him. this goes on for a couple of weeks. a couple of weeks of him dodging phone calls from simon because he wants to make sure martin’s okay. and look that’d be nice if simon actually cared but he doesn’t and martin knows that.

 

it’s winter break and martin’s been drinking the alcohol his brother snuck him for christmas. and he’s spiraling. he misses talking to abby (she said they could be friends but he definitely feels too stupid to try because she probably thinks he’s in love with her or something and it was probably a pity statement anyway). he misses simon. he has this stupid thought in his head. this stupid thought that he wants simon all to himself and if he posts these emails that guy will go away and simon will maybe realize… well maybe he’ll just see martin.

 

so he drunkenly posts the emails to creek secrets and he doesn’t remember it the next morning when he wakes up with a killer headache. he doesn’t remember until suraj texts him ‘dude did you see creek secrets?! simon’s gay!’. it all comes flooding back to him and he can barely make it to the bathroom, heaving the contents of last night and all of his feelings into the toilet.

 

he’s freaking out. he outed simon. he knows that’s a big deal. he knows how much it took his brother to come out to their family and his friends. he knows how he feels about himself. he picks up his phone. he has to call simon. he looks down at the blank screen for a second before tossing it onto his bed. he doesn’t know what he’d say. he can’t take this back. he can’t give simon his chance of coming out to his friends and the school back. he’s really fucked this.

 

he doesn’t do anything. it’s the first day back at school and he’s laying in bed staring up at his ceiling. he’s been up for hours. he’ll see simon at school today and he doesn’t know how to handle it. how he’ll handle seeing him, seeing how much he was hurt by what martin did. maybe martin will say something to him. then again, martin  knows he won’t.

 

spencer and aaron make fun of simon and ethan. it’s one of the meanest things martin’s seen happen at their school (just behind him outing simon). simon stands up to them and martin smiles. despite what he did simon isn’t taking shit and at least that feels kind of good. as good as it can.

 

he follows simon out to the parking lot when he leaves that day. he tries to explain why he did it (another bullshit lie). simon doesn’t want to hear it. he gets it. simon’s on the verge of tears, he can tell. martin feels smaller than he ever has before. simon tells him to get the fuck away from him. martin wants to cry but he doesn’t and he gets away from simon. he figures it’s the least he can do.

 

he opens his laptop and goes to creek secrets. he sees simon’s signed post asking blue to meet him at the winter carnival. martin swallows and shuts his laptop.

 

he sees him in the dressing room before the show. simon won’t look at him. he doesn’t blame him. martin so badly wants to say something, but he can’t. he’s frozen and nothing he says will help repair the damage. he’s pretty sure the truth would make it worse anyway. the play goes well (if you don’t think about the ‘t’ in the cabaret sign breaking). simon and him work through their scenes together, simon’s eyes show zero emotion beyond what the script calls for.

 

martin isn’t going to go to the carnival. he doesn’t want to see who turns up. if anyone turns up. he decided on this when he read simon’s post. it’s stupid for him to even think about himself anymore but it’ll still hurt. he’s hurt himself enough, he doesn’t need whatever is going to happen at the carnival on top of it. because whether blue shows up or not, he’ll feel bad.

 

he watches simon cleaning off his makeup in the dressing room out of the corner of his eye. he decides to go.

 

simon’s been riding the ferris wheel for what feels like hours. no one has shown up yet. this is painful in more ways than martin had expected. simon’s last ride comes to an end and still, no one has shown up. martin doesn’t even think about what he’s doing. he rushes up to simon and says it’s him. he hopes simon believes him. it’s another lie but he’d tell him later that it was only half a lie. that really, he likes simon. that’s what all of this was about and he’s an idiot for not just being honest. but doesn’t simon get how hard that is? how hard being honest with yourself and others is? and maybe there’s a small part of simon that feels the same way or could feel the same way?

 

he’s trying not to get his hopes up between the time he starts for the ferris wheel and when he opens his mouth to speak. but he does get them up a little so when he sees that look of annoyance and slight disgust in simon’s eyes, it hurts. it hurts a lot. he fucked it up and even if he hadn’t fucked it up, this moment probably wouldn’t be any different. he’s gonna try not to self pity too much but for a second he will. why would simon ever like him anyway? he briefly thinks about saying well no, i wasn’t the one in the emails but goddamnit simon, i like you anyway and can’t that be enough? i know i fucked up but can i fix this? because i think we could be great or something close to it. but he doesn’t. he gives up.

 

he gives the guy manning the wheel four dollars and says the last ride’s on him. he walks into the crowd and turns to watch. no one’s come yet so he (selfishly) feels a little better knowing that this guy probably isn’t coming. and then he sees bram come out of the crowd and walk up to simon. he gets in the seat next to him and everyone’s cheering and they’re kissing and martin’s head is spinning once again.


End file.
